


Echoes of Insanity

by Kanuvina



Category: The Secret World
Genre: Gen, Morninglight, Templars, The Filth - Freeform, supernatural horror, supernatural terrorism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-02
Updated: 2018-02-02
Packaged: 2019-03-12 17:36:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13552287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kanuvina/pseuds/Kanuvina
Summary: The Morninglight has struck again. Maab is sent to investigate.





	Echoes of Insanity

Maab stared down the dark stairwell of the _Estacion Del Tranvia Tossal Del Rei_. The broken floodlights flickered sporadically, lending just enough light for Maab to see the inky, veiny tendrils slithering along the tiled walls.

Another subway. More Filth.

Me [02:27]: I’m here.

Sonnac [02:28]: Good. You know what to do. As the Americans say, this isn’t your first rodeo.

Me [02:28]: ...Really?

Sonnac [02:30]: I was trying something new. Anyway, gather what evidence you can. Eliminate any filth-infected you run into, but complete eradication is not top priority. If you can gather any remnants of the Filth bomb used, that would be quite the boon.

Me [02:31]: Understood.

Maab put her phone away and stepped quickly down the stairs, avoiding the ribbons of Filth that oozed along the floor. It was as disgusting as anything called “Filth” could be: black like spilt oil, twitching and writhing like a living thing as it spread indiscriminately over any surface, living or inanimate, it touches.

She’d dealt with it on numerous occasions, always careful not to let it touch broken skin or any orifices. After the second time fighting filthy humans - a campy name given to people infected beyond the point of saving - Maab had learned to wear black. Filth may have been metaphysical in nature, but it was a bitch to get out in the wash.

Maab pushed past the turnstile, mindful of how the Filth tendrils progressively thickened the deeper into the subway she went, like a vascular system leading to the heart, and the heart in this case was ground zero of the attack.

From what the Templars had gathered thus far, all signs led to Morninglight followers. The cult had done similar attacks in the past, using suicide bombers to spread Filth. Their favorite targets were underground metro stations; the dark and dankness of them seemed to help the Filth spread faster. It also helped that they were busy, with crowds of people gathered closely together.

Morninglight had attacked stations in New York, Tokyo, and now Spain. Of course, any evidence was usually eaten up by the Filth, or covered up before the Council of Venice could send anyone to investigate. This time, the Templars “got out ahead,” as Sonnac had put it, which was a euphemistic way of saying they were going in before Council approval. That was fine by Maab; she was just a soldier in the Secret War - let the faction leaders play politics. While they hemmed and hawed, Morninglight was pushing their warped agenda of “human transcendence.”

Human Transcendence. Another euphemism. What they really meant was mutation and loss of humanity altogether. Maab had taken out enough filthy humans to see what transcending meant to Morninglight, and it wasn’t pretty.

Up ahead, through the flickering lights, Maab could see the boarding platform, or what was not obscured by globs of Filth. A train sat idling there, its windows blacked out by the ooze. The double doors were jammed open by a particularly wide vein of Filth covered in volatile tumors, ready to pop at the slightest touch.

This was where it happened. The bomber must have been inside the train car and detonated the device when it arrived at the station. The entire first car was overtaken with Filth; there was no way Maab would be able to go in to investigate.

She looked around for pieces of metal or wiring, anything that looked like it could have been part of the bomb, but the Filth had spread out too much and covered nearly everything in this area. She was relieved to see no filthy humans in the vicinity - most had probably died in the initial impact, and the rest likely wandered around the station and deeper into the tunnel. She still needed to find something, anything, that tied this to Morninglight.

Maab walked around the perimeter of the station, finding nothing and no one except more Filth. She looked down the dark train tunnel and swallowed hard. She knew that was her best chance of finding anything, but she hesitated. It was very dark, and what little illumination she could see from the emergency floodlights was dim and erratic, at best. She had no flashlights or flares, nothing to light her way. She had to make a decision: risk the dark, or leave empty-handed.

Maab jumped down from the platform, careful to avoid the central third rail, in case it still had power. As she walked, she rested her hands on top of her pistols at her sides, ready to deal with any crazed filthy humans she came across.

As she made her way deeper into the tunnel at an excruciatingly cautious pace, Maab could hear something up ahead. It was a voice, barely human, high-pitched and frantic like a person on a bad coke high. It babbled and cried and pleaded to no one. The closer Maab inched towards it, the more words she could pick up.

The person - or, what was left of its humanity, which was very little - rambled in Spanish, but that did not deter Maab from understanding it.

“Mother… Mother… M-M-MOTHER, PLEASE. It feeds… they feed… consume the stars. We are all made of stars. We… MOTHER…. the universe… consume… awaken. Awaken. We are made of stars. Awaken and consume…”

The first time Maab had heard these words, they sounded like the ravings of a mad person. Really, they were - filth-infested lost control of their minds and were no longer sane - but there was a meaning behind those words.

The floodlights flashed, and Maab saw him. Alone, hunched over, he was covered in black slime from head to toe, the light reflecting in an oily sheen all over him. Short tentacle-like protrusions all over his body twitched and wriggled independently as he clawed at his own face and sobbed, repeating the same words over and over.

He didn’t notice Maab standing about 30 feet away from him. She tugged her phone out and hid it behind a flap of her black leather trench coat so the light would not attract the filthy human’s attention. She needed to record his ramblings. This was her evidence.

Morninglight’s most famous slogan was “We are all made of stars.” It sounded uplifting and inspirational, like some gimmick off an after-school PSA. It was not just a cheesy metaphor to their cult, however. They literally meant it. Morninglight believed that everything was made of stars, made of energy, and that energy had one purpose: to be consumed by The Dreamers.

Maab didn’t believe it when she first heard it. She didn’t believe it up until she experienced it - _them_ \- herself. When Sonnac had asked her to describe it, her human tongue could not formulate what she had seen and experienced. The best she could come up with to explain her interaction with the Dreamers was to retell a bible story - the story of the temptation of Christ on the mountain. Like Jesus in the story, she had been transported to Somewhere Else, and offered so many things. The Dreamers offered her anything she wanted, their only desire to be released from the Eternal Slumber. Maab had not been prepared for this, had not been told by anyone - Sonnac, the bees, anyone - that she would be tempted like this. She had ultimately chosen not to take their offer. When she told this to Sonnac, he seemed unsurprised. He told her the choice had been hers to make. Maab had asked who or what the Dreamers were, and Sonnac had explained that there was no way to understand what they were. Calling them angels would be a grave understatement. They were older than god. Older than time. They were creators and destroyers, far beyond mortal comprehension.

At the time, and even up until now, Maab didn’t want to delve deeper than that. The Filth was the Dreamers’ dark feelers into the Material, violently penetrating the minds of humans, trying to find _the one_. That one person powerful enough to release them. But just like The Devil cannot force someone to do his bidding, neither could the Dreamers, and Maab would not be their emancipator.

In the meantime, Maab could deal with the Filth. It was tangible, destroyable. There was no time to dwell on the precarious nature of the universe and all living entities when she could put an actual bullet between the eyes of an actual baddie.

Her recording secured, Maab crept closer to the filthy human, doing her best to maintain the element of surprise. She wanted a single, clean shot, and for that she needed to get close enough to be able to aim at his head clearly… ten feet, or so. She had very little time to aim and pull the trigger while the lights were working - very little room for error.

She pointed her pistols in the general direction of the infected man and waited for the floodlights. He had quieted, and now the only sounds in the tunnel were the occasional condensation drip and her own breathing.

The light seemed to take forever to come back on. Maab’s heart raced wildly in her chest - she cursed at herself for not carrying one of those little keychain flashlights she passed in gas stations and drug stored a hundred times. One of those would have really come in handy.

A faint zapping buzz sound gave her a millisecond of a heads-up and the floodlight came on. If Maab had a voice she would have screamed as the tunnel was washed with brief light and she came face-to-face with the filthy human.

His expression was indiscernible, covered as it was with black goo. His eyes were open, but they were entirely blackened, and his agape mouth was filled with Filth. He cried out, and it came out as a gargle as the tar-like substance poured from his mouth. He shambled towards her, his arms outstretched.

“Mother… G-get Mother… Dinner Time… feed… MOTHER… the s-s-starssss…”

Then darkness.

Maab felt the wet hands grab her in the pitch-black and she tried to pull away, but his strength went beyond any human’s. He was trying to pull her down, trying to douse her in the surrounding Filth. Maab managed to break away and jump back a few feet. She could feel his approach, making the air between them more dank, thicker. Maab always thought the Filth should smell like something foul - rotten leaves, or gasoline - but it was devoid of a scent.

She shot her guns in an arc in front of her, hoping to hit her target at least enough to maim him so she could run away. The light flashed on again, and she tried to aim and shoot again.

The filthy human screeched, an awful inhumane sound that set her teeth on edge. It collapsed in a heap and the tunnel was washed in darkness again.

Maab’s chest heaved as she breathed hard through her mouth. She stepped backwards, not daring to turn her back on the infected man until she was sure he was down for good. The light overhead buzzed and she saw what was left of him: a lumpy mass on the ground, rapidly dissolving into the rest of the Filth. _We are all made of stars, indeed._

Maab made her way back to the platform. As she pulled herself back up, she caught a glimpse that made her blood run cold. The sleeve of her right arm had been torn in the scuffle, and the skin there had been clawed open.

Blood seeped out, but worse, Filth was seeping in.

Maab took in a trembling breath. She climbed up onto the platform and attempted to regain her bearings. She needed to get back to the stairwell and out of the subway. She got to her feet and her world turned upside down. The room swayed; she felt uneasy on her own two legs. _This was it,_ she thought with dread. _This is the first sign of infection_. She took a few tentative steps, and it felt like she was walking through a foot of mud as she struggled to lift her feet.

She tried to retrieve her phone. Every movement now felt sluggish, as if she were coated in the Filth. She did her best to type, but her fingers felt thick and clumsy as she tapped the keys.

Me [02:45]: Sned hhelp

Maab didn’t wait for a response and shoved her phone back into her pocket. She dragged herself through the curdling Filth, her goal a somewhat cleaner spot of concrete near the turnstiles.

Walking was an endeavor and took too much energy. It felt like an eternity just to travel a few feet. A few more, and she collapsed onto the floor and dragged herself a little farther.

Maab had gotten Filth on her before, but it had never gotten past her clothes and skin. She knew she had a small window of time before she would begin to lose her faculties, before she would succumb to the same fate as the filthy human she just had to put down moments earlier.

She reached the turnstile and gripped one of the locked metal bars in an attempt to pull herself up. As soon as she lifted her head, Maab felt a strong nausea overtake her and she turned her head to dry-heave. When the dizziness subsided, she was morbidly relieved that she hadn’t thrown up any black bile - a telling sign of progressed Filth infection.

The room was still spinning and dark spots clouded her vision. From what the bees had told her of the Filth, she knew it was a matter of time before she would hear the voices. The Dreamers - the bees had told her to call them that, for their true names held terrible power, and any who spoke them would cut their own tongues out before uttering them again.

The Filth was a byproduct of their restlessness, a tear in the fabric of reality as they fought against their Eternal Slumber.

None of that seemed particularly important in the here and now, however, as Maab continued to struggle to right herself. Her hands felt coated in slime, thick and gunky and slipping off the turnstile. She could see the skin of her hands were clean, but they felt dirty, like she’d eaten a greasy cheeseburger and didn’t wash her hands.

The dark spots forming in her vision widened, threatening to block her sight completely. If she could just get past the _bloody_ turnstile and up the stairs…

That’s when she heard it. Or, _felt_ it? Maab was uncertain here, just as she was the first time she had interacted with them. There were many voices, hushed and strained, echoing through her mind. Their language was none she had ever heard anyone speak, spidery words with soft edges. Though she couldn’t place their language, she understood their meaning.

The Filth was speaking to her. Or, more like, the Dreamers were speaking to her through the Filth, beckoning her. They pulled at her mind like a child pulled at her mother’s apron, asking for sweets. Except they didn’t want sweets - they wanted her. Mind, soul, power. As the seconds ticked on, the voices grew more desperate, more threatening.

_No_ , Maab thought with panic. _Not yet_ … Her thoughts sounded foreign in her own head, mired and delayed like a warped cassette tape playing in another room. She remembered what the filthy humans always sounded like as they lumbered around, begging and crying and laughing to themselves. A feeling of dread washed over her.

Maab was going mad.

She clawed at the turnstile again, this time wrapping her arms over the top and hoisting herself up. She dragged one foot under her, then with great effort she got the other underneath her, too. Her head swam, vision ink-stained more and more with each passing second. She couldn’t see anything by the time she got herself upright, just black nothingness.

Maab felt a vibrating pulse from her pocket and she sobbed soundlessly - backup was surely on the way. She didn’t have much time. There was a possibility whoever was coming would arrive too late. Maab needed to prepare herself for the possibility that she was not going to leave the metro station alive.

The voices continued to grow angrier, more frustrated. The threats to her person ran counter to the promises of so many “gifts.” Power, riches, boundless pleasure. All could be hers, the Dreamers promised, if she would only submit. Accept this fate. Give herself to them.

Maab’s consciousness fought its best fight. She could hear the bees in the periphery of her mind, buzzing frantically, doing their best to save her with what little they could do. They begged, “Sweetling, sweetling... “ but the Dreamers’ voices drowned the rest out.

The cacophony of voices overwhelmed her mind. She could feel the Filth crawling up her legs, wet slick covering her clothing and seeping through the fabric. Like being submerged in icy waters, Maab was tired of fighting as it pulled her under. She wanted to rest, to let the darkness wash over her and pull her into the Void…

-+-

Maab was aware of something warm tap against her cheek. Her eyes fluttered open, and she was overcome with a sense of relief as the gray ceiling of the subway came into view. Along with the ceiling, two men appeared, flanking her on each side. Both had brown hair, though one had a neat beard and the other was clean-shaven.

_Hey… Hey, are you awake?_

Maab looked over at the bearded man and blinked a few times. He had a shotgun resting against one shoulder. He scanned the area, a look of concern on his youthful face.

_Yes, I think so._

She tried to move her hands and found that she could. She could see through the tear in her jacket sleeve that her wound was gone. Everything felt brighter and clearer and quiet… so beautifully quiet.

_Good. We need to go. Now._

She sat up quickly and nodded at the clean-shaven man. He was already standing, and offered her a hand. She took it gratefully.

_I really appreciate you saving my ass._

_Don’t mention it. We were in the area, you know. Spain is great this time of year - the Filth is really in full bloom._

The beardless man smiled wryly at her, and she smirked back.

_I’ll have to sightsee another time. I have what I came for - let’s get the hell out of here._


End file.
